Update and correction: Jimmy Leeward, the pilot of the Mustang P51 that crashed in Reno was first reported by media to be 80 years old. He is actually one month shy of being 75. TMV regrets carrying the error forward. Dr.E, M.Ed. Being closer to 80 than to 20 years of age, I bristle when people say ‘old people’ cant, shouldnt, ought not to (fill in the blank with any number of harmless, funny, serious endeavors) But/And, though I know firsthand as an USAF wife for two decades, the pride...

about whether Perry signed the writ to execute Cameron justly… even though it is thought now that Cameron may have been innocent. 234 people executed during Perry’s governorship. That’s equal to more than a third of the small town population where I grew up. I sit here imagining every third house in the northwoods having the hearse pull up. It seem odd that some politicos say they are pro life and pro death as though in a schizoid fugue…. but not prolife if it is x kind...

A quixotic and magnetic new film has been made by Dawn Gifford Engle in which Nobel peace Prize awardees such as Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Rigoberta Menchu Tum and other notables speak about the actual Mayan meaning of the end of the year 2012. There is a good long film clips here... A few years back, there arose a media-inflated rumor about 2012, rivaling, in my mind, a “barricade the family in the cellar” doomsday scenario conflated by some in radio and print on paper...

She is about four years old… by Amelia Alisoun Parental exploitation Obviously it is not the tiny children parading across the stage in Vegas showgirl atture who have chosen to be there. It is the parents, most often the mothers, who have carted their child around the country, taken them to salon after salon for various physical treatments, forced them the practice their stage routines and selected the garish clothes and makeup who are the architects of the child pageant. What is in it for...

The word eugenics was not used in Bachmann/ Perry argument. But, here is the definition. Does the matter they are discussing tilt into this: EUGENICS: the science of improving a human population… by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis. I’m not certain whether the greater point of a...

Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times Mis estimados: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for “good” in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals...

FOR THOSE WHO CAME, BUT COULD NOT STAY While you and I were being born, growing “in the little bread oven”… as it was often said back then… there were other little babies across the world, suddenly thrust into real ovens, and they were not allowed to grow any more. Don’t tell me that that is the past and none of our concern. This is in cellular memory, and we are here to make certain that we speak for those who were born and who died before they could speak. Don’t tell me that we have...

it’s not like in the film Amadeus, wherein the dunderheaded Emperor pettishly snaps to Mozart about his newest composition, “Too many notes, too many notes.” The Emporerr didnt know what he was talking about. But, a sizeable group of people in the USA do know when there are Too many laws, Too many laws! I have been thinking for some time when our local congressman asked us to help find docs to live and work in rural areas…I thought shut down all the turf and trade protectionism...

“Satan Sandwich” was coined by Emanuel Cleaver, chair of Congressional Black Caucus, to describe the debt/ceiling compromise. I have wondered for a long time if part of the problem of public discourse is lack of what? lyric ideas that lead to in depth solutions. What can one do with a Satan Sandwich? Supersize it? Make the problems worse for all. Condemn it for the overage of transFATS? Make the situation less poisonous for all. Investigate how its huge numbers of calories are falsified...

The Bus is hanging over the edge of the ravine. The Bus is crammed with human beings. The driver behind the wheel, steps away from the crisis, leaving others hanging… At the moment, on cable and network tv, many reps and senators are hedging now about how they will vote on the agreement just announced to not default et al. They are right now, to a person, saying, “I havent read the legislation…” but “I’m not going to vote for it if it doesnt have x or y.”...

It will be interesting to see what Nancy Pelosi decides to say and do. Apparently she has been missing from the cameras and airwaves since Obama announced a compromise had, in plan, been reached just an hour ago. She could come out slugging, or in Throw Mama From the Train persona. Reasoned hope says for many of us, let the posturing be over now, there’s been so much of it, some of us would rather watch B movies and eat dusty licorice that fell behind the refrigerator last year, than see...

Lowest level of spending since Eisenhower, says the President, just now breaking into regular programming on tv to make this announcement: The Congress and President are seeking balanced books. Have to ask wealthiest americans and corporations to pay more. Have to cut entitlements. Most important to get out your yellow highlighter: second part of agreement: By Nov, bipartisan committes formed right now will report back on which programs will be cut, which spendings will take place, and then, an...

Dear Souls of Norway: I looked for a picture of something of Norway and her people that might represent this time. I found this picture of a beautiful Norway Pine, one who is limber and leans to the side, and yet remains strong. Like you. This tree belonging to you, is literally called “weeping Norway spruce,” like our “weeping willow” trees here in the USA are named too, for their green wands and leaves growing fountain-like. My grandmother who was from the Old Country had...

As the Asian stock market is about to open and our elected Feds on all sides have not come to final terms about an USA budget plan/deficit reduction/credit extension, et al, that is either stepped or aboslute, it may be that damage comes to other nations, not only our own. The deadline-darers seem to have set aside that there is far more at stake than they themselves and their parties. We all are at stake. And, other people of the world are at stake. We are no longer an island nation with Canada...

Actually, funny even without Rupert.

The collective unconscous remembers everything that modern culture has forgotten and covered over. So here, let us go behind the Hallmark card displays, where there is a little door, and entering through, we find ourselves in a muddy field where the land has been fed by boys’ blood and the bloodshed of citizens. And, just this then whilst standing here on this field meant to grow life but which became a slaughter site instead…. Mother’s Day evolved from a specially coded day begun after the...

Water For Elephants — Directed by Frances Lawrence. Romantic Drama. A young man finds himself drawn to a female circus elephant and the elephant’s female mahout. 122 minutes Color 2011. * * * The best English speaking circus film I know of is Elia Kazan’s Man On A Tightrope. I had hoped to find a better one here, but I didn’t. Kazan’s film focuses upon the circus world itself, its filth, its color, its performers, its hard work, its living conditions, its prejudices and superstitions,...

I Am – Directed by Tom Shadyak. Documentary. A spiritual civics lesson about the family relation in the internal human anatomy and everything in the world, as a Hollywood broad comedy director seeks the truth of what has gone wrong with the world. 76 minutes Color 2011. * * * * * I wanted them all to shut up. For my sense was that every single one of them were talking about something that they knew about but never had experienced, rather like a person born blind discussing blue. But my frustration...

This is a telling interview with one of Osama bin Laden’s wives, by Khalid Nasr in March 2002. (Islam allows up to four wives. bin Laden possessed all four.) This was carried by Guardian UK only 6 months after the bombing of the Trade Towers, Pentagon, and one hijacked plane was diverted by passengers away from bombing the White House and was taken down into a woods. And here is an important ‘first witness” document, Indicating a classic psychological pathology in bin Laden, who...

When one takes most any day in history and looks at the overall picture, one sees that nations and individuals are like floating islands, coming near one another, colliding, pushing away, perhaps building bridges across their divides, sometimes not for a long long time. Here are some. There are many more. 2011 Osama din Laden dead 2010 A car bomb is discovered and deactivated in New York City’s Times Square 2003 President George W. Bush declares that ‘major combat operations’ in...

This is President Bush’s statement about President Obama’s call to him tonight: “Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. This momentous achievement marks a victory for America,...

this is from one of my friends in New York City near 2 am in the morning just now re news that Bin Laden is dead. It appears from the emails I’m receiving from the east coast in large numbers, many there have not yet gone to sleep. This news has been poignant for many many there. “….it is good – very – that finally he was found and dealt with in the right way …it sounds like very careful work was done, and for quite a long time, to get to this point. Not to...

On the tv news tonight, a fire fighter from New York on the scene at 9-11 says somberly and without joy, that ‘today is a good day. ‘A New Yorker elder at Ground Zero says in his Irish-tinged voice, ‘Thank the Lord this has happened though we still feel pity for the families’. Another New York firefighter who has joined the cheering crowds in New York, says, ’9-11 was an act of war that took 323 of my firefighter brothers. 9-11 changed our lives in horrible ways,’...

UPDATE: Government officials say that following Muslim ritual, the body of Osama bin Laden has been given to the sea. In Muslim faith, as in many other faiths’ rituals, burial is most often within 24 hours of death, after body is washed and ritually ministered to. Meanwhile on another front, apparently a small crew of Navy Seals had dropped from the sky and rappelled down the walls of the huge mansion compound bin Laden was hiding in along with his ‘youngest wife’ and various...

This just in, a wounded Man with dusty feet was seen leaving the tomb near Golgatha, trailing remnants of His winding cloth behind him. Though injured around the head, hands, feet and ribs, He appears to be walking on His own. A pure white dove seems to be flying a little way ahead of Him toward the city. When interviewed He said, He was looking first for a tearful woman who loved Him so, so He could reassure her heart that though He had died, He was indeed now alive again. The reporter asked...